Self Storage

The term ‘self-storage’ is short for ‘self-service storage’, also known as ‘mini storage’.
A self-storage business provides storage rooms, lockers and/or outdoor space for rent. They rent self-storage spaces to individuals (usually storing household goods) and small businesses (usually storing excess inventory or archived records). Rental contracts run from as short as 1 day up to 2 years.

Benefits

Rented spaces are usually secured by the tenant's own lock and key. Unlike a warehouse, employees of a self-storage business do not have access to the contents of the space, limiting the storage operator’s liability regarding the renter’s possessions. The facility itself is equipped with security cameras, alarms and access control to safeguard clients’ items and provides 24-hour access.

Adjust rent as demands fluctuates

High control on rent collection

If customers are in default of payment, you may control access to their units by locking them with an over-locking management padlock.

Relatively low staff requirements

Unlike traditional real-estate-related businesses, a self-storage facility can employ one or two sales staff to run the business during the day.

Low facility maintenance

Maintenance of a self-storage facility is minimal as the storage units are almost maintenance-free and customer traffic is low, which limits usage maintenance.

Future of self storage

Self-storage market statistics

For an idea of the main self-storage markets and their sizes, we’ve collected data on a number of markets to give you an idea.

View the infographic

“When we look at the future of self-storage, we see a bright future with lots of growth”, says Colin Jeromson, Managing Director of Steel Storage Europe Ltd.

A bright future

“We’ve been working in this business since 1990 and have seen each market we operate in grow exponentially since the self-storage concept was first introduced”, he continues. “At that time the USA market was at 3.0ft2 (0.28m2) per head of population and Australia at 0.3ft2 (0.028m2). I thought the USA was saturated back then and that Australia would grow to around 0.8ft2 (0.074m2) But that is all academic now, because the USA reached 7.4ft2 (0.69m2) per head of population in 2011 and Australia 1.2ft2 (0.11m2)… and both markets are still growing! And the rest of the world is still way behind these two markets, but it’s climbing. There is certainly a lot of opportunity for this business in other parts of the world.”

Where to now?

“We see the opportunity for strong growth in Asia and Europe. Europe has begun to develop with huge potential and success from current owners as well as entrepreneurs. New investment groups and start-ups are entering the self-storage business in Asia – with Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong gaining ground. Asia has a unique model that allows profit-based occupancy from day one, because most buildings are designed for multiple users allowing self-storage to blossom.”